The Psychology of Work

1. The Psychology of Work Fall 2006

2. Introductions • Welcome • Course Concept • Course Requirements • Readings and Attendance (course/colloquia) • Design and Evaluation Project • Literature Review/Presentation • Final Exam

3. BA – Psychology 1986 – The University of the South MS & Ph.D. 1992/2000 – Georgia Tech (Corso) MBA Coursework concurrent with Ph.D. Lockheed Senior Scientist/Engineer 8+ years NTSB Accident Training Usability Experience (HFI, IBM, Charmeg) Airline Pilot/ALPA Safety Volunteer Experience in the design & assessment of complex hardware & software systems Program Management Organizational Management Research Experience in both academic/industry Safety Training & Experience Line Pilot Experience Business Interests, Background & Experience Teaching Background Background

4. Course Resources • Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics Methods, edited by Stanton, et. Al., CRC Press, New York, 2005 • Evaluation of Human Work, Wilson & Corlett, CRC Press, New York, 2005, • Various other books and sources • Course Notes CD-ROMs • Potential Course Collaboration Web Site

5. Human Factors Tools, Machines Material Design & Handling Team/Organizational Environmental Factors Safety, Regulatory, Compliance Human Capabilities & Limitations Human-Machine Interaction How do we design adequate tools and safe machinery? How do we engineer the work environment for material design & handling What organizational factors affect performance Team performance and training? Human performance limitations? System Safety, Safety Management Systems, Compliance Psychology of Work?

6. Overall life cycle cost? Cost of maintenance? Cost of operation? Lost profit due to poor design Potential employee or consumer injury? Lost manufacturing efficiency Redesign costs Cost of regulatory compliance Lost revenue from poor usability and loss of market share Consumer confidence National confidence Ergonomics in Industry

7. The Moral High Ground? • Aim of bettering the human condition (Hancock and Diaz, 2002) A Balancing Act? • Conflicts between system effectiveness and efficiency and cost(s)? • To whom do we owe a duty? • Job holders? • Corporate management? • End users?

8. Systems Engineering and Science • Importance of systems based procedural approach • Need for defined hypotheses, planned data collection, archives of performance/anthropometry • Increased need to evaluate the overall job, organization, management, and economic issues

9. Industry versus Scientist • Scientific • Theoretical basis for human-machine performance • Developing hypotheses, view and question work environments • Rigorous data collection, analysis, publication of repeatable experiments • Industry • Solving the real world problems • Usually not very scientific although extensive data collection, analysis, standards based or benchmark based work • Typically a member of a design team – although sometimes the ONLY human factors “type” on a project or at the company

10. Text as Handbook • Considerable reading but adopt text as a handbook or reference • “Don’t miss the forest for the trees” • Consider the various methods being presented • Adopt a critical approach to how YOU might use these methods if you were working in a position using these methods • Be able to talk about these concepts in class

11. Methodologies • Physical – Musculoskeletal factors, potential injury, discomfort, workplace risks • Psychophysiological – Physiological indices of stress • Cognitive – Analysis/Evaluation of cognitive context, cognitive task analysis • Team – Extending analysis to work groups, assessment, training, cognition, decision making • Environmental – Environmental stressors • Macroergonomic – Organizational, systems based analyses, manufacturing environment, management systems, safety systems, compliance.

12. Library • Consider developing your own library of reference materials • Specific methodologies – heirarchical task analysis • General methodologies – Task Analysis • Generalized – Evaluation on Human Work, Salvendy’s Human Factors books • Reference materials about design, anthropometry, manual material handling, usability, etc.

13. Annett’s Dichotomy of Methods

14. Validation of Methods

15. Validating the methods selection ergonomics intervention process

16. System Safety • Safety – Freedom from harm, achieved by doing things right the first time every time • System – A composite of people, procedures, and plant and hardware working within a given environment to perform a given task • System Safety – The discipline that uses systematic engineering and management techniques to aid in making systems safe throughout their life cycles.

17. Safety Terms • Hazard – Something that can cause significant harm • Risk – The chance of harm, in terms of severity and probability • Safety Community – Group of individuals who provide staff support to line organization in the support of the safety effort (occupational and industrial safety, system safety, industrial hygiene, health, occupational medicine, environmental safety, fire protection, reliability, maintainability, and quality assurance personnel

18. System Safety Development History • 1940s – attempt to control obvious hazards, change things after the accident occurs (in testing or frequently in use) – fly, fix, fly • Not adequate for aerospace and nuclear programs • 1950s – movement away from trial and error, attempts at defining safety and designing for it • 1960s – Military and other standards • 1970s – Management oversight and risk tree • 1980s – “Facility System Safety” – cost, product liability litigation (cost), experience (at loss) begin to define upstream safety efforts leading to better design. • 1990s – Risk based process system safety – focus on the “process” (example, very strict OSHA rules promulgated requiring processes in place to limit hazards). • 2000s – Quest for integrated system safety. Integrating system software safety into control systems, proliferation of safety systems as a discipline, development of Safety Management Systems (SMS)